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Notes -
Is there some sort of tactical school of thought on the efficacy or even purpose of early morning raids?
My suspicion has always been that the cops use them to literally catch crooks napping, but as @2rafa points out, it seems like the potential for "WTF IS GOING ON" violence really goes up.
I assume that surrounding the domicile would probably result in too many barricade events?
It's pretty simple: just-awoken or drowsy people are less effective criminals and combatants. Just as an example, I personally have a mental safeguard that I have deliberately curated that makes me double-check any dangerous actions I might make the moment I wake up (like grabbing my nightstand gun), because I have more than once woken up still half-dreaming and hallucinated things that weren't there. If the someone executed a no-knock raid on my house, that just-woke-up hesitation could literally be a matter of life or death.
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At least in the case of Waco it seems like the ATF and FBI wanted to generate publicity. Koresh made regular trips into town and they could have easily arrested him then, thry chose not to.
This search was also during Waco (aka funding) season.
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